Are most TV shows recorded in 24p like film? (1 Viewer)

[JediFonger]

i know a lot of shows are filmed on either HD Video or Film or a combo. are most (can i say all?) shows nowadays 24 frames per second like film? are any recorded at 30 frames per second or 60 to match 1920x1080i or 1280x720p HDTV standards or is that done post? just curious.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

God, I hope not! One of the biggest advantages of TV is the superior motion rendition provided by 30 fps, or particularly 60 fields per second (although 30fps film has a real edge over 24 — take a look at some TODD-AO/30 some time). Some series are shot on film at 24fps (Lost, I believe, is one), and perhaps others are shot on 24p video and then 3:2 interpolated to 30i because the "creative" people want that "film look", but video footage is usually taken at 30i. As a matter of fact, a good deal of 720p60 is taken with 1080i30 cameras. :rolleyes

 

[JediFonger]

i'd like to know because i'm recording 1920x1080i shows from over the air myself and when i make encodes to smaller sizes. i'd like to know if most are 24fps... so i can make them all 24fps... or 30. and which 1 should look better.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Probably go with 29.97fps.

 

[Ken Chan]

Just from the look of them, one-camera shows -- dramas and a few comedies -- are shot on film at 24fps, and everything else is shot on video. It would depend on what you're recording to see if you're anywhere close to "most" for either one.

If you want to take the uncertainty out of it, you keep the 1080i stuff interlaced, with a proper interlaced resize. That way, it will still be correct. Otherwise, you have to determine what was 24fps, and do an inverse-telecine; then you can encode progressive. One big advantage is that if you're playing on a computer or iPod, it will definitely look better.

 

[Roger_R]

If the show is in HD, it was made at 24fps. I haven't seen a show yet that's recorded at 29.97 and that's in 16:9.
If you save it at 29.97 on a computer, you'll end up with every fourth and fifth frame consisting of fields from adjacent frames. It'll look like crap and you'll also have to save 6 extra frames per second so the overall quality will be worse as well. The best way to save on your computer is probably to do an inverse telecine to remove the excessive frames and then save it as 23.976fps progressive.

 

[JediFonger]

um. isn't the computer 60Hz refresh?

i have original .ts caps. so 720p is 59.9xfps and 1080i is 29.97x fps.

i've alredy done many recodes back to 24fps. just wondering why HDTV shows are 24fps. is it cause camera crew has access to film equipment and that's it? HDTV shows ain't ever going to be shown in cinema anyways. i don't get why 24fps is still the 'golden standard'.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

I don't know. PBS-HD seems to be true 30fps, shot with HDVS cameras, although I don't do too much digging. (Remember that HD was supposed to get rid of this 29.97 nonsense. Honestly I think RCA should just have paid for retuning everybody's sound IF stages to 4.5045 MHz back in '53, with colour SC of 3 583 125 Hz and framerate of 30.00 Hz.) What I do know is that there is a lot of mixing of source footage in TV production these days. Stuff comes in from film, from umpteen video formats all with different specs, from CG ; and it all gets edited together. From what I hear, it's something of a nightmare.

 

[JediFonger]

1.5+ years ago. i read this article from either penstar or som other tech site that analyzed what the "optimum" refresh rate our eyes can handle with regards to quality and won't tire often and it's somn like 60 or 120fps i can't remember. beyond a certain point, it's indeterminable. so the tech article wanted games to be all like 60fps or somn and wanted films/TV or video in general to be in 60 so it's au natural... but 24 is still the biggie.

 

[Ken Chan]

Lots of shows have always been shot on film. (That's why really old shows like Mission: Impossible or The Equalizer can now be rebroadcast in HD.) So the people that make the shows haven't changed the way they work, which is a good thing. It's just that with HD, you can now see a lot of the detail.

 

[Roger_R]

One other reason might be that they want to sell the shows to PAL territories and converting from 23.976fps to 25fps gives a much better result than from 29.97fps to 25fps.